Greenville, S.C., June 6, 2016– It has been more than two years since BFGoodrich Tires has not claimed the overall win in a SCORE International desert race. While that streak ended, the tire company did help their drivers to eight class wins. Additionally, eight of the top 10 overall finishers raced on BFGoodrich Tires at the 48th SCORE Baja 500.

For the first time in 11 total races in the series, a driver not running BFGoodrich Tires claimed the overall win in a SCORE race as Gus Vildosola, Jr took the prize by three minutes.

Coming first across the line on the day was BFGoodrich Performance Team member Rob MacCachren, followed closely by defending Baja 500 champion Carlos Lopez, whom he passed with under 30 race miles to go. Both of these drivers starting several minutes ahead of the eventual winner and as a result of elapsed time, Vildosola, who started 13th overall, took the victory with a time of 8 hours and 20 minutes.

BFGoodrich leaves Ensenada with six drivers leading their respective SCORE class championship standings after two races of the four-race 2016 SCORE International schedule.

“While we are disappointed in not having taken home the overall win, we are pleased with the overall performance of the Baja T/A KR2 family and we are particularly encouraged by the promise demonstrated by the development tires that we deployed with certain teams for this race,” said Chris Baker, motorsports director for BFGoodrich Tires. “Our process for succeeding our current race tires with even higher performing solutions remains on track.

“We congratulate Tavo Vildosola and his team on the overall win. We enjoyed years of success with the family that we are proud of and we applaud their accomplishment today and look forward to meeting them again in the desert . . . very soon.”

Storylines for the 48th Running of the SCORE Baja 500:

· BFGoodrich has taken the overall win in 11 of the last 12 SCORE International Desert races. It has also collected 22 of the last 25 major North American desert races, including the Best In The Desert series.

· In the Baja peninsula, BFGoodrich Tires dominates, collecting a total of 87 overall victories.

· Last year, BFGoodrich Tires claimed its 31st overall SCORE Baja 500 win. Over the past five years, BFGoodrich has been on 41 of the top 50 overall finishers and claimed 42 class titles at this race.· The BFGoodrich Tires Baja T/A® KR2 race tire has 21 overall desert race wins.

Beyond MacCachren and Lopez racing hard for a top-three finish, several notable stories of resilience surrounded BFGoodrich racers. Three-time SCORE Baja 500 champion and BFGoodrich Performance Team member Bryce Menzies got off to a quick start, passing Robby Gordon rapidly off the start and sat in the top group for the majority of the race before an incident pushed them back in the pack. However, Menzies recovered and finished sixth.

Troy Herbst and Ryan Arciero in the No. 91 Terrible Herbst/Monster Energy truck started off the line 28th, with a lot of dust and race traffic ahead of them. Steady and aggressively they picked up spots and ran an impressive 8 hours and 40 minutes to place fourth overall.In Class 1, the team of Ronny, Brian and Randy Wilson along with John Herder started 15th off the line but stayed out of trouble and, in a race where just over 58 percent of the field finished, methodically moved up the course outlasted the competition to win the class on BFGoodrich Tires.

As BFGoodrich continues to recognize its 40 years of heritage in Baja in 2016, they will be preparing with teams for the next SCORE International desert race at the SCORE Rosarito Beach Desert Challenge on Sept 14-18.